Hey Siri, Why Still No Talking?

Chats change our daily lives and ourselves. They allow us to grow and to understand the past, the present and the future. Today, we are increasingly moving our conversations into virtual space and our followers are not necessarily realistic. Various chatbots help us to call a taxi, find out weather, traffic conditions or talk to the Supreme. So far, "Ok Google" or "Hey Siri" is talking pretty nasty and talking to our new interlocutors like kids. But for a long time?

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Although controversial, DI is increasingly being challenged by A. Turing, a goddess of modern computers, who, in the 1950s, warned that machines would drive the world. The Turing test measures the machine's ability to "think" without analyzing the internal parameters, but appreciate behavior. The idea borrowed from the Victorian salon game, when asking questions written in an attempt to find out whether the person behind the curtain is a man or a woman.

By the same principle in 2014, One-third of the London judges selected by the judges, who for five minutes talked frankly with real people and computer programs, could not distinguish who they were talking with. So DI, embodying a teen boy from Ukraine, E. Goostman, became the first program to officially win the Turing "simulation game". The most courageous, for example. Inventor, businesswoman and futurist R. Kurzweil, predicts that the human level DI will be reached already in 2029 (you can talk about Ramona on his website today).

As for the similarity of the interlocutors who participated in the experiment, it is necessary to return to the problem of R. Dekart's consciousness and body dualism. The dechretic "Cogito ergo sum" ("Meastu, I am") exalted the thinking, thus allowing us to extract from nature everything that has been so carefully hidden from man. He also untied the human "I" from everything that is sensual and irrational. So far, the question of whether human consciousness is a very complicated machine, or whether we are more than just a whole of the physiological parts and that there is some kind of qualitative leap remains open. In any case, the Turing test shows that the artificial consciousness is able to at least make a very real impression of true. So it's time to think about what we will talk with Siri after we can no longer distinguish it from, for example, our neighbor.

Already today, the smartest supercomputer in the world, IBM Watson can handle all the information available to humans and analyze it faster than we flash (200 million pages per second). In addition, he develops his learning from his mistakes and successes. In 2011, he successfully broke his human rival in the Jeopardy Quiz, which requires not only dry knowledge but also the ability to understand irony, riddles and language skills. By providing Watson with millions of documents, dictionaries, encyclopedias and other materials, IBM team ensured that it was well prepared for homework.

Now the company is consulting with Watson in areas of high volume of information such as the financial sector or telecommunications. However, the use of DI and large data is expanding, it already covers both government decisions and the shaping of public policy. For example, the true level of poverty is determined by analyzing night-time photographs of satellites and redistributing economic and humanitarian aid and investment. Creators of image presidential candidates in the US also consult DI. Based on data-based marketing, using social records, geolocation, browsing and shopping habits, you are specifically provided with information not only about the latest shampoo but also about the future president.

The "big data", which is gaining momentum, and the computer-aided ability of our interlocutors, provide new ways of talking about the world and the processes taking place there. The stunning technological possibilities are fascinated and inspired by the effort to create new ones. However, searching for ways to collect, systematize and analyze large data tends to less focus on the meaning of data, causation and interpretation.

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So will we be able to exploit the full potential of DI? Will we understand what we want to say to Watson in the future? Will we pay him to ask important questions and, more importantly, are these issues of concern to him? What will Watson himself ask? Are we going to have interesting interlocutors for him? And finally, does he generally want to talk to us? There are a lot of questions that are already good: for a man is a asking beast.

Talking with others and the stories we tell ourselves, allows us to improve, liberate, and see beyond usual. Having a good conversation, both parties acquire something new. If we want the future chats of ours and the DIs not only useful, but also meaningful, we need to return to the reciprocity of the conversation. Our new interlocutor will have all the information available, i.e. Y Nothing new we can not tell him. What then remains for us in this newly transmitted competency field?

Uncertainty and creativity. Only the obvious meeting with ignorance creates meaningful - human - creativity. The great data allows the DI to see new correlations, but it does not allow them to make sense. Our knowledge is not just passive information recording and re-combining. Our imagination is able to transcend empiricism and reveal the causes and consequences of relationships. The spontaneous human approach to the world often begins with physical experience and is often more imaginative than real. It is a polyphonic flow, not limited to concepts. According to A. Schopenhauer, the imagination that covers one's intuitive grasp of one's own subject can tell much more than one can sense a mind that does not have such grace.

The main feature that distinguishes us from DI is our freedom to experience and develop indifferently. By rejecting this uncertainty, often this ability is written down to a broadly and negatively connected sense area. But only after experiencing this absolute uncertainty, we experience a wonderful moment when we clap Eureka! This is the foundation of human creativity, and so we differ from all (our) works.

It is easy to assume that the DI will solve all the problems we have not been able to resolve by ourselves so far. Of course, after consulting the devices, we will be able to better calculate tomorrow's stock price, evaluate the future employee's performance, prescribe medicines to the patient, or help choose the profession. However, these and most other dilemmas of mankind are inseparable from the ethics, morals and values ​​that we create ourselves.

Technology embodies our relationship with the world, with all our hopes and fears. If we can not imagine the desired future, it is unlikely that it will be possible for us to make our works. It's naive to expect our new interlocutors to tell us what it means to be human. In discussing the future, we would like to know as many quick and reasonable answers as we expect from ourselves and from DI. But will we be able to ask not about facts, but about the meaning, or will we learn not to analyze and interpret together? Let's try to make the conversation fun.

credits: Eugenijus Kaminskis